Analysis of European and Italian reception systems: a possible path towards the overcoming of the migrant crisis

A separate discourse is needed for Italy because of its particular situation, being the European country that is facing more directly the migrant crisis, together with Greece. Amnesty International, in its 2015 Report about migrations, made a general comment on what each European country should do in order to properly face the situation: «Develop robust domestic refugee systems: states must have fair domestic procedures to assess refugee claims and must guarantee fundamental rights and access to services, such as education and healthcare, to refugees»; even if it can seem too little specific, it is actually the perfect summary of what every State has to do in order to improve their reception system.

Following the guidelines proposed by Caritas Italiana, the first step to take consists in structuring a unique and consistent reception system, a system overcoming the dichotomy between first and second reception, which in operational terms is translated in the persecution of different objectives by the two levels of reception, and also in different standards of intervention, with a propensity to low standards in the first phase of reception. For this reason it is desirable to conform standards at all levels to those of SPRAR, which have been built from the bottom with the fundamental help of all stakeholders; second, it could be helpful the creation of some sort of connection structure, linking the different levels of reception, preferably driven by local authorities together with organisations; finally, the institution of a monitoring authority with the task of evaluating every reception context, highlighting positing models and possible limits of each situation.

All these measures should have two main objectives: the first is that of humanising the whole process, rendering it more sustainable for those individuals who are able to pass through that deadly journey. The second one, consists in the definitive overcoming of the “emergency” status that is always related to migration issues; Italy is the destination of migrants influxes since more than twenty years by now, and we are still talking about an “emergenza continua”, a continuous emergency, which is incongruent even in the choice of these incompatible terms.
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The number of people to host in the reception system is constantly underestimated, and for this reason every year there is the need for extraordinary resources, necessary to create a parallel reception system, complementary to the original one, in order to temporarily (and inefficiently) fill the gaps of that very system.
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Until Italy, but also the European Union, does not program a structural intervention aiming at efficiently respond to the migrations in a systematic way, the vicious cycle will not be interrupted, and the emergency will always be parallel to the structured system, at the expense of people who have fled persecution, and who attempts to reconstruct a life path in Europe.

The necessity of a reform of the reception system, in addition to what we have just said, must involve a change also of other parallel features, which can strongly affect the way that system works; for instance, the Italian Ministry of Interior suggests some possible future step: providing for the creation of a National Plan for Integration for those who have obtained international protection, with the aim of building a bridge between the reception phase and that of actual integration and stabilisation on the territory, and thus involving the main feature of everyday life, such as work, education, housing, healthcare and other social programs.
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Even on the communication side, there is the necessity for change: media have to focus their attention on facts, trying not to spectacularizing the issue, but giving real and correct information to people; government, on the other side, must refrain from engaging in xenophobia itself, for example by implying or directly claiming asylum-seekers and migrants are to blame for economic and social problems, must spread positive values through its institutions, and also by implementing effective policies to address xenophobic violence: […]